World Cat Day 2019

August 8, 2019 in the World

A cat plays with a ball of wool.

Copyright: Loliloli, license: public domain

It's all about cats on August 08, 2019 because it's World Cat Day or International Cat Day. It had been proclaimed by the International Fund of Animal Welfare and is coordinated by divers animal welfare organizations all over the world. The goal of the happening is to increase the public's awareness for the needs of cats. The exhortation for species-appropriate keeping and the fighting of neglect and abuse are a major issue, too. On World Cat Day cats receive special delicious food or other gifts that they like.

Cats accompany humans for thousands of years. They are pets, that are not used for any kind of work or economic reasons, which makes the connection between humans and cats so extraordinary. The character of a cat is said to be idiosyncratic, farouche and independent, which makes them hard to train. But nonetheless cats always keep in touch with humans, when they were tamed once und quiet often the connection between the animal owner and the pet is very emotional. Whether this is a one-way love or not caused debates among animal friends.

Worldwide there are about 60 cat breeds known, whilst the European shorthair is the most spread one. The mysterious nature of cats let people come up with many cat related sayings and fairy tales. Cats are considered a very clever, patiently awaiting, and sometimes even evil, unthankful and egoistic character, who loves to hunt. Popular examples for that is the idiom and characters like the "Puss in Boots" and the "Cheshire Cat" from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Not only in the Western society the World Cat Day and cats themselves are popular, loved and appreciated. Like in Japan in many households and entries, there is the “Maneki Neko”, an artificial white cat with a collar and red inner ears. It sits and becks with its paw. Being the reincarnated goddess of mercy she is supposed to bring luck to their owners and keep away harm.